Book Review: You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself- David McRaney

You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself by David McRaney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I stumbled across You Are Not So Smart a couple of years ago, but was unable to find a copy on audio and never got around to reading it. When I was looking for a nonfiction book to read and stumbled across the follow up You Are Now Less Dumb by the same author I decided to give it a chance.
The book was good, but for me it wasn't that impacting. This happened for two reason I think. First, I've read several other books about pop psychology and they all seem to refer to the same few studies and their implications. Specifically, I am thinking of 59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman and to a lesser extent Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman which I read [and reviewed] recently. You Are Now Less Dumb even refers to Kahneman's book a few times. The biggest downside of any book like this is the tendency for information overload and the difficulty that comes with retaining so many suggestions and implementing them all. Also, the organization of the book, at least on audio, was hard to follow. There was a lot of emphasis on how and why our brains work the way they do, but much less emphasis on practical application to your personal life. That is part of why I enjoyed 59 Seconds so much is that it focused on application and continuously strove to debunk pop thinking.

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